The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has a dedicated portal site to support the Tokyo Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (TOCOG) in the smooth hosting of the Games.
The Olympic Games are from 23 July to 8 August, and the Paralympics from 24 August to 5 September.
The portal provides weather information, UV index data and meteorological satellite imagery for individual event sites and provides information in 15 languages for conditions relating to weather, earthquakes and other hazards.
This includes Heat Stroke Alerts and other information enabling heat-related action to protect athletes' health, as well as storms, which can disrupt competitive events.
"JMA introduced Two-week Temperature Forecasts and enhanced resolution for Daytime High and Early-morning Low Temperature Distribution Forecasts to support effective measures against extreme heat, which is a major concern in the Games," says Mr YAMAKOSHI Yuichi, Head, Office of Public Relations at JMA.
"Furthermore, in cooperation with Japan's Ministry of the Environment, JMA introduced Heat Stroke Alerts in April 2021 to prompt countermeasures in expected hot conditions. JMA has also been operating Tokyo 2020 Weather Portal since 2019 to provide up-to-date meteorological information relating to individual event sites," he said.
"JMA will continue to work closely with TOCOG and to provide them with detailed weather forecasts and meteorological satellite imagery around the event sites in a timely and accurate manner, which will be essential for the smooth operation of the Games," he said.
High temperatures have been observed in a wide area of Japan (especially northern part and inland areas), but the temperature in Tokyo is not extremely high so far, and is going be almost normal until 30 July according to JMA's Two-week Temperature Forecast.
In order to detect the generation and development of cumulonimbus clouds that cause thunder and heavy rain at an early stage, Himawari, which has the world's highest level of meteorological observation performance as a geostationary meteorological satellite, intensively observe an area centered on the Tokyo metropolitan area where many venues gather, changing the observation frequency from the usual two and a half minutes to every 30 seconds during the Games period.
JMA will accordingly provide data to TOCOG on to support accurate and timely predictions of the risk of lightning and heavy rain and to disseminate this to the competition managers and venue managers in a timely manner. This technology utilization is the first initiative in the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In addition, JMA has published a dictionary that translates terms used in disaster-related information into multiple languages so that it can be used for information transmission in multiple languages. Utilizing this dictionary, a disaster information notification application for travelers called "Safety tips", which was developed by a private company and supervised by the Japan Tourism Agency, can notify various information such as heat illness information in 15 languages.
